Court forced to do municipal works: HC

The Delhi High Court on Thursday came down heavily on civic agencies for not doing enough to stop water-logging during Monsoon. It said instead of judicial work, the court had been forced to deal with basic municipal issues.

"What has happened to the system? For last two-three days, I am mostly dealing with civic and municipal works. There is no judicial work," a bench headed by Justice NV Ramana, who took oath as chief justice on September 2, said.

The bench, also comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog, said the Delhi government and civil bodies - including the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Delhi Jal Board - had failed to come up with "short-term and the long-term" plans to tackle the problem of water-logging.

It reserved its order on a petition, saying: "At some point of time, the court's intervention has to come to an end. Such floating PILs take a lot of judicial time."

Earlier, a bench headed by acting Chief Justice B D Ahmed had asked the heads of all civic agencies and other public bodies to depute officials who would look after and be held accountable if water-logging on streets is reported from their areas during monsoon.

It had pulled up MCD officials for their failure to take measures to stop water-logging in some areas of the city despite its earlier directions and had said, "If you don't take your job seriously, the angry public would beat you up."

The bench had on August 22 asked the officials to carry out a drive for a week to be on the roads to monitor the situation during rains.

It had also asked each commissioner of the trifurcated MCD to make their deputy commissioners responsible to take steps to prevent water-logging in their respective zones.

The court said it would pass certain directions and asked the civic agencies to take action accordingly.